Welcome Back II
by naboru narluin
Summary: After defeating Shockwave and Starscream, Onslaught and Blast Off share a moment in the space bridge control room. / Blast Off/Onslaught / smut, slash, angst /Set during "Revenge of Bruticus".


**Title:** Welcome Back II  
**Warnings:** smut of the plug'n'play variety  
**Continuity:** G1 (part of ultharkitty's Dysfunction AU)  
**Characters/Pairing:** Blast Off/Onslaught  
**Rating:** R  
**Disclaimer:** Sadly, nothing is mine.  
**Summary:** After defeating Shockwave and Starscream, Onslaught and Blast Off share a moment in the space bridge control room.  
**Beta:** ultharkitty :D

**Note:** Written for the **tf_rare_pairing** 5 Firsts challenge.  
Set during "Revenge of Bruticus".

* * *

**Welcome Back II**

"Where's Vortex?", Onslaught asked the moment Blast Off entered the space bridge control room.

"Hmpf," the shuttle huffed. "He's taking _care _of the prisoners. Of Starscream, to be precise." He made sure his tone didn't leave any doubt as to what was going on in the brig.

Onslaught apparently understood because he shook his head briefly, and turned to the screen. It showed a diagram of Earth getting closer to its sun, and a countdown in the lower right corner.

Blast Off stepped closer, staring at the images, but his thoughts wandered somewhere else.

The heat on the planet would rise, at first slowly, then more quickly. The organic substances would burn, the energon temperature within lines increase till it reached the critical point. The mechs would explode; Autobots and Decepticons alike. No mighty Megatron or noble Prime would survive; they had to surrender to the law of physics.

In the end, only the few mechs on Cybertron would remain. There might still be some somewhere scattered in space, or hidden in the dark tunnels and ancient systems under Cybertron's surface, but whatever Onslaught thought, it wouldn't be enough to rebuild the planet.

For a moment, Blast Off wished Starscream and Shockwave would suffer with the others on Earth and die, but they still needed Starscream. He had to free them from the combiner programming.

And Shockwave…

Blast Off's optics twitched. He didn't know what the others had planned for him, but Blast Off would like to see him locked in a small box, personality component disconnected from his body, to have him relive what Blast Off had been through.

He knew he wasn't that creative when it came to revenge or torture like Vortex might be, but Blast Off was certain that there wasn't any torture like the Detention Center. Not living, but unable to die.

Blast Off tensed.

"An empire for your thoughts," Onslaught said, having turned, he leant against the console. The words caused Blast Off to look up, and he only then realised that Onslaught had been staring at him staring at the screen.

The shuttle shrugged. He knew this tone Onslaught used, partly amused, but still expecting an answer.

"Thinking about the extinction of our race," Blast Off replied, gaze returning to the screen. It wasn't a lie, he'd done that, before the thoughts about revenge had taken over. He wasn't about to admit that he'd had them, though. It was beneath Blast Off to submit to something like that.

"You don't like my plan?"

A frown built on Blast Off's face plates, hidden by the visor. "That's not what I said. I merely stated the way things are." His shoulders twitched to a tiny shrug. "If they hadn't decided to leave Cybertron ages ago, we'd already have been gone. And if this didn't happen, it'd be only a matter of time."

"So, you're not sorry." It wasn't a question, it was a plain fact.

"There is no reason to be."

"What about the organic inhabitants of the planet?"

Blast Off suppressed a condescending huff.

"What about them?" he answered flatly. "It doesn't matter if they die or not. The extinction of one or two more races doesn't matter for the universe. There're more important things going on than any of you could imagine." The old disdain towards planet bound mechs crept into Blast Off's voice. It wasn't on purpose, it was just a habit. A habit all shuttleformers had towards the people ignorant of what was _out there_. And now Blast Off was bound to them. So clueless and naïve. What had Starscream been thinking when he chose to bond Blast Off to them?

This, however, was the price of freedom.

"Besides," Blast Off continued before he could think about it any further, "they would have killed themselves soon anyway."

"You're pessimistic today."

Blast Off turned his head, glancing at Onslaught for a moment, then he began anew. "It's a logical conclusion. Your alt-mode is proof of their own destruction. All our alt-modes are, since we're rebuilt from metal they used in an incident they called 'World War II'. I think the name speaks for itself, as does the II makes obvious they're prone to repeating it."

Onslaught puffed air off his vents in an amused, silent huff. "You know a lot about them considering that you seem to dislike them, and we were only a short time on the planet."

Raising an optical ridge, Blast Off realised Onslaught was right. He didn't even notice that he gathered information, as much as possible in the time they were there. It was a routine; getting as much data as he could, searching, analysing for useful things. After all, Blast Off _was _an explorer. Or he had been - before the war.

Eventually, he replied without his usual blankness, but with a hint of nostalgia. "It's hard to get rid of old habits."

They were quiet again. Blast Off followed the time counting down while Onslaught looked at him.

Time passed. And even though Blast Off had looked at the timer, he couldn't really say how much it was when Onslaught reached for his upper arm.

The shuttle tensed. The touch was intense, the new frame's sensor nodes still needed time to adjust, but Blast Off soon relaxed. It was odd, and not him. He felt coding work which ought not to be there.

"We can rebuild our Cybertronian modes when this is done," Onslaught said, calmly.

Blast Off nodded. He wanted his old frame back, but he kept quiet, just looking at the other's fingers on his arm. The touch wasn't firm, the thumb brushing lightly over the place where once Blast Off's winglets had been.

"I liked them," Onslaught muttered.

Blast Off's optics dimmed.

Their energy fields fluctuated. It was different, but Blast Off didn't know if he might have just imagined it. It could also just be the many vorns since the last time he sensed this. Sensor nodes lit up under the brief contact, and a surge of something that Blast Off had almost forgotten travelled down his arm.

It'd been so very long…

He turned to Onslaught, optics roving over the other's plating, taking in the differences from his Cybertronian form.

"Vortex is busy?" Onslaught asked, a brief hint of static in his voice.

Blast Off nodded once more. Then he muttered. "Where're Swindle and Brawl?"

Onslaught's finger traced down Blast Off's arm, stopping at the heat shield, wrapping loosely around the wrist. "Probably somewhere in Shockwave's energon storage…" he answered, tugging Blast Off a little closer.

The shuttle complied. He put his hand at the teal hip, touching the metal briefly.

The size difference was the same as before the Detention Centre. Onslaught was only a little smaller than Blast Off, and their knees almost touched when the shuttle stood before the other; close to him but not close enough to let their front plating make contact.

They felt each other's energy field, however, along with the warm air of heaving intakes.

There was no need to talk.

Lazy fingers trailed along the leading edge of the heat shield while Blast Off's hand moved further up. They had time, they didn't need to rush, but he also didn't want to wait too long.

The thumb brushed over the lower rim of Onslaught's interface panel, causing the other to hitch quietly and give a stronger flare of his energy field.

The shuttle responded, the fields touched, grinding, and there was something different and familiar all at once. They didn't feel like they had before, and Blast Off hoped it was merely because of their new frames. He didn't like the idea of a program changing something so essential and individual.

The caresses to his heat shield tickled, distracting him from the unwanted musings. Onslaught's other hand griped the edge of the console; Blast Off's stroked idle circles on the other's thigh.

They stood like this. Almost two kliks passed in which their energy fields and brief touches were the only hints to what they might intend.

Only when Blast Off traced the outer rim of Onslaught's interface panel another time, it opened with a quiet hiss. The components looked the same as before.

They both shivered when Blast Off's thumb trailed along the other's port, their energy fields crackled, and Blast Off's own panel opened.

After the connection was established, the effect was immediate.

Their energy fields mingled while programming activated, unforeseen, intense and without their conscious intention. It took over, sending the first bits of data through the interface, searching for its equivalent within the other mech's coding. It was as though the last bits of it slotted together, taking away even the last part that'd been left of their individuality.

A keening whimper emerged from Blast Off's vocaliser. Blast Off saw Onslaught's grip around the edge of the console tighten, before his optics flickered, and the input became dizzy. His equilibrium chip refused to work for only an astrosecond, and Blast Off didn't know if it was because of this, or because of the implanted code, that he leant forward, almost toppled onto Onslaught. Their chest plating collided with the harsh sound of metal against metal.

Lines of programing poked and prodded, along with nonsense data and energy, triggering pleasure which Blast Off hadn't felt for vorns.

This wasn't right.

Intense and good it might be, it wasn't right.

Onslaught's reluctance was noticeable through the connection, and all they could do was hinder the program from activating the gestalt bond.

Blast Off didn't want that. It would be too much, too intimate. The first few moments after they'd woken up had been bad enough; when he hadn't known what was happening, and the bond was just there, like a weight of four other minds on his thoughts.

He hadn't expected the program to be this intrusive, but there was nothing he could do to change it now.

Blast Off's and Onslaught's ventilation increased, becoming faster as did the stream of data through the connection. The shuttle had given up on trying to control it, merely keeping the bond from opening as if it was the only thing that mattered. He hardly noticed the touch as Onslaught clutched at him, at his waist, pulling him closer, still.

Their engines revved. Onslaught gasped.

Blast Off moaned. He put his forehead on the other's shoulder, and the hand on the dark thigh squeezed the metal.

His ailerons flicked, clacked, and he barely noticed it until Onslaught brought his foot up, the heel scratching over the sensitive wings.

Another moan as sensation travelled over the new sensor net, causing the nodes to light up, glowing under bliss that ebbed and came back again.

Blast Off's fingers searched transformation seams. Onslaught's did the same.

But this wasn't them.

The urge to be physically close hadn't been there _before_, but it was now. It was as strong as Blast Off's urge to push Onslaught back on that console and climb on him, for more touch and contact and pleasure.

The shuttle knew the other felt the same when he wrapped an arm around Blast Off's neck, eliminating even the last bit of space between them. Face hidden behind the battle mask buried in Blast Off's throat, it was all that Onslaught could do to not retract the metal barrier between the cables and his mouth.

There was a wish for Onslaught to do exactly that, but it wasn't Blast Off's.

All of this, it wasn't them.

None of it. Not Blast Off clutching at Onslaught's back, just beneath where the cannons emerged, causing them both to moan. Not Onslaught wrapping one leg around Blast Off's while the other scraping a wing.

But even though they knew, they couldn't stop. And it got only worse when the charge soared high, fingers scratched and tugged on transformation seams, clutching at plating as though they wanted to crawl into each other's armour.

It was so very good. Distracting from unwanted thoughts. Reminding them of what had been before.

But it wasn't them.

They knew, and they stopped caring, because the program deleted even the tiniest bit of thought and feeling that this was wrong.

Then they overloaded. Almost painful was the fierce rush of burning pleasure as sensations exploded and charge peaked. It was good, strong and intense as all of this. They clutched even tighter, the grip around Blast Off's neck so strong it slowed the energon flow through the cables for a moment, while Blast Off's own fingers left black streaks on Onslaught's back.

They shuddered, engines revving, energy fields extending and wrapping around them, hot and tingling.

It was as acute as they had hoped it'd be, and it was okay when eventually the program's influence vanished.

The overload ebbed, leaving a glow of tingling and satiation in their systems. Blast Off loosened his grip, as did Onslaught, but they didn't let go.

The energy fields parted slowly, as though reluctant, and their engines calmed.

They didn't need to speak, in silent agreement they didn't disconnect; they stayed like this, cooling fans producing quiet sighs.

After a breem, their intakes worked at a normal level again. The post-overload sensations were eventually gone, and only the others' presence remained.

Still, they didn't move. Comforting each other, making sure they were truly there.

No more isolation and sensory deprivation.

It was odd for Blast Off to be in need for company. He'd never been, or maybe he had, but never admitted it.

He was now, however, and Onslaught accepted it. Blast Off sensed it through the interface; he didn't want to be alone, either. They both wanted to be sure that this wasn't one of Shockwave's tricks, playing with their memory. It didn't matter if Shockwave had done it on purpose or not – the damage was done.

It was a wordless confession of just how much the Detention Centre had got to them. But it was okay. No one else was there; no one else needed to know.

The third breem passed, and still they didn't let go.


End file.
